Sample Sunday – The Chosen

For Sample Sunday I decided to turn the clock back to my first novel, on sale right now for only $2.99. If you haven’t checked out The Chosen, here’s why you should –

“It’s deeply funny, very well written, both in terms of pacing and voice, and fast paced.” – Asa C. Page

“The Chosen by John Hartness is an example of all that is good and joyful in fiction. I love this book. It’s fast paced, very well voiced, and genuinely funny. ” – Keryl Raist

“What I will tell you is that this is a well written work that transcends genre. Its a great book that will keep you entertained on a flight with even a crying kid or two. Don’t grab it when you can’t sleep though. It will keep you going til the sunrise.” – Ken Prevo

See, told you. But if you don’t believe me, here’s a sample!

Chapter 1

I sensed him before I saw him. I always did. I was just sitting there, minding my own business, playing a little blackjack, when I felt his presence over my right shoulder.
I spoke without bothering to turn around. “Hi, Lucky.”
“Big A.”
I hated that. He always had to go there right away. And he was supposed to be subtle. Ass.
“Been here long?” he asked.
“A while. Playing a little cards. You?”
“Well, you know me. I’ve got a place here. I love this town. Everything about it just calls to me.”
“Yeah, I think I heard that somewhere.”
I finally glanced over and gave him the satisfaction of a look. A new image for him this time around—red riding leathers, no helmet of course, black boots, black hair tied back in a ponytail and sunglasses. The sunglasses were kind of a given, I suppose.
“Nice outfit. You look like one of the cavemen in that insurance commercial.”
“Thanks. You, as always, look well put-together.”
I’d never been sure how to take his compliments, and I wasn’t in Las Vegas to think, so I just went for face value. I was wearing a worn t-shirt I’d picked up at a roadside store somewhere in Montana sometime in the past, and a thrift store work shirt with “arry” over the left breast pocket. I didn’t know if it used to say “Larry” or “Harry.” Neither was my name; I just gave Goodwill $2.99 for the shirt.
“Thanks.”
For once, he didn’t press the issue. He sat beside me and slid the dealer a hundred. We played blackjack together for a while, me playing green chips, him moving quickly from green to black to purple, all the way up to the yellow thousand-dollar chips in a couple of short hours. He lost just enough hands to keep from getting thrown out, but not quite enough to keep the eye in the sky from getting suspicious.
“A, looks like we’ve got company.”
“You got a mouse in your pocket? I’m not the one who’s been sitting here counting cards for three hours.”
“Yeah, but I’m not the one who took twenty grand in chips out of my safe deposit box this morning. Chips, I might add, that came from a casino that was demolished a couple decades ago.”
I hated that he always had more information than he rightfully should. To give him his due, he probably had people literally everywhere in town. But it was still annoying. I could admit that visiting a box that hadn’t been touched in years might raise an eyebrow or two, but I still blamed the attention of the lummox in the off-the-rack suit on my unwanted companion’s unabashed card-counting. Either way, the brutes in suits might have had a few questions for me that I wasn’t fully prepared to answer at exactly that moment, so I looked at my old pal Lucky.
“Keys?”
“Might I suggest California? I hear San Francisco’s nice this time of year, and you know how much you love seafood. Why not check out Fisherman’s Wharf? Visit Alcatraz, you know, see the sights a little. My bike’s out front. You’ll know which one. You owe me.”
“We’d have to be even for me to owe you. And we’re not even. This doesn’t even come close. Nowhere near close.”
“You really know how to wound a guy, Big A.”
“Bite me.” I grabbed Lucky’s keys from the table, tossed a green chip to the dealer, and headed for the cage. I spotted another security goon between me and the cashier, so I decided on discretion as the better part of valor, tossed a couple grand in chips into the air, and used the resulting pandemonium to make my less-than-subtle way to the exit. As I glanced back toward the table where I had left Lucky, I noticed that he and the two guards were having a beer and yukking it up like long-lost frat brothers, which for all I knew, they might have been.
He was right; I picked out his bike right away. It was a big, loud ostentatious black thing with flames painted on the gas tank. Subtle. I could have sworn the thing looked hungry. I put the key in the ignition—an apple key chain? Really?—and pointed the machine south down the Strip, putting California firmly behind me as Lucky had suggested.
Okay, so looking back on it, maybe opening a twenty-five-year-old lockbox wasn’t exactly the most under-the-radar move I could have made. I knew that people took out safe deposit boxes in this town all the time. But not all of them paid the rent on those boxes with automatic debits from numbered accounts. I’d just had the bad luck to run into the same security guard that rented me the box the first time, on his first day on the job twenty-five years ago. Little bugger had a good memory, that was for sure. I guess I hadn’t changed much since then. Okay, make that not at all. But I was still blaming Lucky. After all, he’d been taking the blame for things for millennia now, so what was one more little incident?
Maybe I should back up a little. This is as good a time as any for introductions. My name is Adam. No, I don’t have a last name. Yes, that Adam. No, really, you can feel for the rib if you like. But it’s better if you don’t. I’m ticklish.

 

Chapter 2

I rode south a few hours. Just outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico, I pulled over to watch the sunset. And to think. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for Lucky, or Lucypher if we wanted to be precise about it, to show up unannounced, but I hadn’t seen him in years. I wondered what he wanted. He always wanted something, and he usually got it. And it usually wasn’t good to be the one who gave it to him or the one between him and his goals. It was better to sit on the sidelines and watch the carnage, hoping not to get too much splatter on your shoes.
That’s what I’ve done for years—watch. I’ve watched the number of people grow from just a couple to billions of huddled masses, yearning for something or another. I’ve watched people kill each other over pennies in the street, and I’ve watched people give their last breath to help a stranger. And through it all, ever since the Garden, Lucky has been a constant. Always around, always goading something into action. I never know why or what he wants, I just watch.
But our last little interaction was different. For the first time in a long time, Lucky had been goading me. He wanted me to do something, and whatever it was, I didn’t want to do it. The last time I did something he wanted, it didn’t turn out so well for me, so I’d tried to steer clear of his maneuvering since then.
I sat for a while and watched the desert turn from a superheated wasteland to a patchwork canvas of light and rolling shadows. I liked sunsets; they carried the memory of the day before and the promise of the one yet to come.
Eve always preferred sunrises. She said they were more anticipatory, like a held breath before the day exploded like a sneeze all over the world.
Yeah, Eve’s real too. It all is, except for the bit about Lucky being a serpent. That was a little bit of poetic license on Moses’ part. He’d always been creeped out by snakes, so I think the whole serpent thing was just an underhanded way of making sure people overall didn’t like snakes any more than he did. Really, Lucky was our friend, and he was in the Garden with us from the very beginning. Several of the Archangels used to come visit; Gabriel, Ariel, Jophiel, and Metatron were there the most, but after we left the Garden, we saw more of Azrael than we really wanted to.
We really did all live there with all the beasts in perfect harmony. Everybody lived forever, nobody died, and it was all sweetness and light. But that couldn’t last, and it didn’t. Then the whole war in Heaven thing happened, and the angels didn’t come around much after that. When Lucky did come back to visit, he had another agenda in mind—one that changed things for us forever.
Lucky tricked Eve into eating the apple, and she shared it with me. We got kicked out of the Garden and headed off to the land of Nod to live all that stuff you’ve read about since you were a tadpole.
We were out on our own, cast out of our Father’s presence and betrayed by one of our best friends. Things were pretty tough for Eve and me for a long time, and eventually we parted ways. After a long time, and more than a few beers, I managed to forgive Lucky, and we reached an understanding of sorts, but Eve never let it go. Leaving the Garden broke something inside her that never healed.
I guess by now you’ve figured out that we’re immortal. Gaining knowledge of good and evil didn’t do anything to change the whole ‘living forever’ thing we started off with, even though we didn’t completely pass that on to our children. Don’t get me wrong; they lived a good long time. I watched more than one century turn with my kids, but eventually they grew old and died. It seemed that with every generation, they died sooner and sooner until eventually, Eve and I were alone. It didn’t matter what my buddy Clive Lewis wrote about all men being “sons of Adam.” That could never change the fact that my direct sons and daughters were gone.
There I sat, on a little hill in New Mexico, watching the sun go down and trying to figure out what Lucky wanted. He had suggested California, so of course, I headed east, but was that what he wanted me to do in the first place? Lucky was the original trickster, so for him to double- or even triple-think me into going exactly where he wanted me to go wasn’t out of the question.
As I pondered, the first star of the night came winking into view in the east, and I felt my answer. East. I had to go east, and I had to find Eve. Things were gonna get ugly.

Crowdsourcing Cover Ideas

Crowdsourcing Cover Ideas

So I’m working on a redesign of the cover for The Chosen. I think the cover I have is okay, but similar to the old covers for the Black Knight books, it doesn’t really tell a prospective reader what the book is about. So for those of you out there who have read the book, what images do you associate with it? What kinds of things do you think would make a good cover? I can’t offer much for your help (unless you want to design the cover for me, in which case let’s talk money), but you’ll have my undying gratitude.

Here’s what I have –

Pros – The title font is good, and it’s BIG. That needs to stay. It’s a striking color combination, the red background with the yellow letters. I like that and think it grabs the eye.

Cons – It says nothing about angels, devils, Adam, Eve, fantasy literature or anything like that. Angel fiction is very marketable, and obviously fantasy lit is as well, but nobody looking at this cover would have any idea what the book is about. That needs to change.

So help me out here, folks. Let me know what the book says to you – what images stick with you from the book?

 

Someday I’ll get back to actually, you know, writing again, but I’ve got a bunch of stuff going on trying to maximize my promotional stuff right now. I hope to have the second draft of Return to Eden:Genesis done by October 1. Especially since I just booked another design gig that’s going to lock up most of my free time in October, so if that book stands a prayer of getting out this year, I’d better step on it.

 

Write-in Campaign!

Write-in Campaign!

I want to sell books. I want to sell a LOT of books. One of the ways I can sell a lot of books is by getting noticed by a lot of people. Right now, Goodreads.com is having a Best of 2010 contest, and I’d like all of you to write in The Chosen for Best Debut Author. Most of you have told me you liked the book, and it would increase my recognition quite a bit to make the top ten or so on the list. Also feel free to vote me in on any other categories that make sense. I promise it won’t hurt my feelings.

So please take a moment and click the widget below or on the right side of the page. Then click on Debut Author, scroll down to the bottom, and write in my name. When The Chosen pops up, click on it and vote!  And hurry – you only have until January 5th to make it happen! But you guys rock, so I have faith in your ability to click a button!
And thanks.

Write me in for Debut Author!

Update – Three weeks in

So here we are, looking for insight into the mind of the self-publishing bazillionaire.

Keep looking, I’m still working on breaking even.

But I’m getting close. I ran the numbers for you a few posts ago, so we won’t go into that again, but we’re three weeks from the removed from the release of The Chosen and I’ve made $140 from the book so far.

Stunning, isn’t it? Now before you get all disheartened for me, there’s another $8 in Kindle revenues coming my way, and I haven’t gotten any reports from the Apple store yet, and likely won’t for a while, because those reports have to trickle down to me through several different accounting departments. So let’s call it $148 in revenue so far, of which roughly $30 goes to my editor (remember, she’s on commission with a cap).

I spent $521 on making the book happen, and I’ve recouped 28% of the cost of the book in the first three weeks. I’m pretty happy about that, actually. I know the real dollars and cents aren’t huge, but I figure by the end of the fall I’ll have covered the costs of development and production, and then will begin making money. Which is a pretty quick return on investment.

I saw something posted on the KindleBoards today that really summed up how I feel about the measuring of pennies that I’m doing right now. Someone posted something, and I’m too lazy to go look it up for attribution, that said that we’re looking at a tortoise and hare situation here. Serious writers will work on developing their backlist and promoting their work, while people who are looking for a quick buck will publish one book, get discouraged by the numbers that I posted above, and fade away.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to make a quick buck (or barrel of bucks). But I know that The Chosen isn’t going to be a huge best-seller. It’s not genre enough to be a fantasy novel, and it’s too genre to be a literary novel. It’s the kind of book that people don’t know how to categorize, and that means that selling the book will be all on me. And I’m okay with that. At the Arts Market last weekend, I told people that the book had a “no-suck” guarantee on it. If they bought the book, read the whole things, and hated it, I’d give them their $10 back. This served as a good ice breaker, and I don’t expect anyone to actually ever take me up on it for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the book is pretty good. But it’s not marketable enough to be a huge seller. So I’ll learn a lot of lessons about publishing, and as the vampire novel comes together (a little less than halfway through) I can capitalize on the experience.

And maybe make a few bucks in the process. If you haven’t bought your copy yet, what are you waiting for?

Commencement

Because that’s the word you use when you’re starting a journey, right? And in our vernacular, it’s become the word for the end of one thing and the beginning of another. So yesterday the transition happened, very quietly, from potential to actual in my status as a novelist. When I got the proof copy of the paperback edition of The Chosen, and it was a good proof, I decided that now the real work begins. Writing the book was fairly easy – I battled all the built-in distractions of living in this century with all these toys, chained myself to the keyboard and wrote the damned thing. Then came the editing, which was less painful by the addition of my niece Dianne. Then came the cover design, by Lindsay, and then the proofs.

Now I have to sell it. I’ve booked a pair of signings so far, and am trying to decide on a plan for a book release party. I’m also working up a plan for a blog tour, and would love it if those of you out there with blogs would open up your sites to me for a day to post about the book and the process of self-publishing and self-promoting. If you’d like to promote the book on your site, feel free to swipe the image below and link to my Lulu Storefront. Any love you can give would be appreciated. If you buy the book, and like it, I’d love it if you’d send me a note to that effect because once the ebook goes live on Amazon (hopefully September) I’m gonna need reviews to promote it there. I can’t offer payment for reviews like some big publishing houses do, but since I’d probably buy you a drink the next time I saw you anyway, I’ll offer up a free drink in exchange for a review.

I’ll be signing at the NoDa All Arts Market in September, and at the Newberry Oktoberfest in, well, October. Hopefully I’ll have more dates to announce here soon, but you can also keep up with all Chosen-related news on the Facebook page I set up for the book. So go order your copy now, and let me know what you think!

Exciting news, and a pain in my @$$

Exciting news, and a pain in my @$$

So I got proof copies of The Chosen in yesterday, so that I can send a few to local writers to get cover blurbs, and I was all excited. Yay! Hard copies of the book! Then I looked inside and saw that the margins sucked and the print was so small you couldn’t read the damn thing. Boo! The same thing happened with the proof copy of Red Dirt Review, and I thought I had taken care of that, but obviously not so much. So I spent a couple hours last night fiddling with the formatting, and ordered another proof copy. Hopefully it looks good. But on the up side, at least now my proof copies will have the right cover art, because my designer and I have finalized the cover. Check it out below. I think it’s fun, and captures enough of the spirit of the book to get people interested, and I like the red/yellow contrast. So check it out.

And I have decided to make a hardcover available, so there will now be three release dates for the book. Hardcover first, then paperback about a month after that, then ebook a little later. I’m not sure how long it will take Rob to get the ebook conversion done because I know he’s stacked up right now, so I’m still hoping for September. So hopefully for my birthday (next Friday in case you haven’t marked your calendars yet!) you’ll be able to order hardcovers. Then by Labor Day hopefully paperbacks and ebooks will be ready. I’m not sure how long it will take the ebook to be available in the Kindle store or iTunes, but it’ll be available on Smashwords as soon as the formatting is done. So now check out the cover by Lindsay, and lemme know what you think!

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